


Spirits

by orphan_account



Series: The Grieving Process [3]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7126390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max leans forward. Bangs sway on her forehead, brown with gentle grays. She puts another hand around Victoria's, squeezes with two now. "What memory do you want to remember? I'll tell you about it." </p><p>Victoria stares. Her chest tightens. Her throat fills with air and her aged body starts to ache so badly so suddenly. She manages a smirk, though, and smugly professes, "<em>everything.</em>" </p><p>-</p><p>They say when you die, you see your life flash before your very eyes. </p><p>[Continues after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5684758/chapters/13095280">The Grieving Process</a>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirits

There's ache in her joints. In her bones, really, everywhere they hold up aged muscles and stubborn bloodstreams. Ache that's, most of the time, doubled because of a hard day's work of going out for her own groceries or framing pictures for modest fees. They say she shouldn't be doing those anymore at her state and age. She's not stupid, she knows she shouldn't be. 

She's just stubborn. Always has been. That Victoria Chase has lived to this age is testament to it. 

She guesses that's why Max is laughing. 

"You really need to start listening," Max says. Chiding but fond, a softness that makes Victoria's heart throb but flutter all the same. "Remember that time you were sick? That was the first month in our apartment. I told you to wait while I grabbed stuff for chicken soup and I found you remodelling the entire place when I got back."

"It's not my fault _I'm_ the one with the good interior designing taste, Maxine," Victoria rasps. _Maxine_ , Max hates that, but Victoria loves it when it makes her nose wrinkle. It does it right now. 

"You were hauling an armoire on your own—" 

"And I did a good job hauling, if I may say so myself." 

Max smiles with a quirked brow. When she chuckles, her laugh lines dig deep like cliffs. Her voice is a bridge and Victoria imagines herself walking across it. "Well, you didn't give yourself any physical injury whatsoever, so." 

Victoria huffs but she squeezes Max's hand. It's so light in hers. Almost unreal. Almost not there. She looks down and the hand's there, sunkissed, freckled, lined with wrinkles that have multiplied with the years. Still soft regardless of the jutting bones of Max's joints. Victoria pads her thumb across the top. 

The universe must be feeling pretty damn sentimental now, too, because in two blinks the clouds outside clear. Moonlight comes in, sheens Max's face with silver and she squints. The crow's feet of her eyes, Victoria really wants to kiss. "Oh, I should get that—" 

"Can you leave it?"

Max looks at Victoria. "Are you sure? Doesn't the light bother you?" 

It does. In fact, it does so much that the moon should really fuck off. But, "I like seeing you," she insists, and it must be her voice sounding so small that keeps Max from arguing. She moves her chair to block some of the rays from falling on Victoria, though. Bad eyes, sensitive eyes. When did she get so old? 

"Do you know what today is?" Max asks. Victoria's eyes snap up from their linked hands. Cloudy and brown. Her glasses are on the bedside but Max's face is as clear as 18's eyesight. Victoria doesn't want to blink. 

"Well, yesterday was my birthday." 

"It was. We had a good celebration." 

"I didn't get to drink alcohol, Max. Not one drop. Jesus," Victoria grunts and Max laughs. And laughs, and laughs, and Victoria wants her to keep doing that. "There was nothing good about that." 

"Everyone was there, though." Max rests her elbow on the mattress, cheek squished by a palm. How, honestly, does one manage to stay this cute with age? 

"I would've thrown a fit if they weren't complete." 

"You would've. Stubborn." 

Victoria puts her nose up, as high as possible with her head on a pillow. Max rolls her eyes. 

"Anyway," she says slowly with sarcastic weight. Victoria mimes her dramatically and she huffs. "Yeah, _anyway_ , it was your birthday. You know what that means?" 

"Yes. No. What?" 

"Presents," Max says smilingly. "I didn't get to give you yours yesterday. I'm giving it now." 

Victoria's chest clenches. _No_ bubbles in her chest like thorns, threatens to go out of her mouth and eyes with water. "Max, you know we've talked about—" 

"Yeah, we talked about it. No more presents. Nothing physical. Because you're a _sap_ ," Max runs a pinky up and down her own cheek. Victoria looks at the freckles like she's counting, like she hasn't counted before and doesn't know the count by heart. "I still got you one. I want to give you one," Max says. 

Victoria swallows. "So, what is it?" 

Max leans forward. Bangs sway on her forehead, brown with gentle grays. She puts another hand around Victoria's, squeezes with two now. "What memory do you want to remember? I'll tell you about it." 

And Victoria's face crumples because _oh sure yeah_ Max has the guts to say something like _that_ when she can't even remember where she leaves her socks. Max snorts, moves her thumbs aside to flatten her face on the back of Victoria's hand. Her face is light. Everything about her is too light. 

Victoria shifts, and the throbs in her bones revive. She holds in a breath. 

"Are you serious?" she asks, half-joking. Max's eyes soften before they light up. 

"Yeah. Hit me." 

Victoria stares. Her chest tightens. Her throat fills with air and her aged body starts to ache so badly so suddenly. She manages a smirk, though, and smugly professes, " _everything_." 

Max doesn't even flinch. She grins, and her face is wrinkled, her cheeks are sagging, the world has stolen bits of the colors from her hair, but everything about her is so young and beautiful and bright that Victoria doesn't look away.

Max's eyebrows furrow with concentration, brain whirring, eyes searching the depths of an invisible chasm. Memories. 

"You were six—you told me—when you got your first camera," she starts. Victoria snorts but Max widens her eyes to shut her up. "It wasn't a Hasselblad or anything, but it was a digital. Your friends were so jealous and kept trying to borrow it, but you wouldn't let them, because you're—" 

"Stubborn." 

"Unbelievably," Max agrees with a grin. She clears her throat to get back some momentum. Victoria scoffs. "But you took lots of pictures. You said, the sky was your favorite. You liked picking out shapes from the clouds." 

"My favorite was the bird." 

"Mhm. And your friends loved them. They were so jealous of your shots," Max drops her voice, sultry, for effect, and Victoria wants to laugh until the moon goes down and the sun pops up but her body's aching. Spent. "You showed your parents, though." 

Max pauses there. She smiles. Victoria looks down, stares at the two lumps that are her own feet under the deep blue linens. Like Max's eyes. Blue is always Max's eyes. 

"They didn't like them," Max finishes. 

"They never liked anything I did." 

Max blows out of her nostrils like steams off a train. Victoria tastes bitterness in her mouth. Old, like black coffee left to cool. Bitter but with very little sting of heat. Old pains, worn pains. Max watches her before going on. 

"You told me about a biking accident you were in when you were eight. You got wounds on your elbow and your mom was so mad because that night, you were gonna go out to dinner." 

Victoria hums. "It was my uncle's engagement party. I had this funky dress ready. Strapless and sleeveless and all. God, she was _so_ mad." 

"You told me about that, too," Max chuckles but her eyes are somber. " _Eleven_ ," she continues gently. "You asked for a better camera. Also when you were thirteen. And fifteen." 

"And I took pictures, and they didn't like them, and the cycle repeated itself—" 

"Until you turned eighteen, in which you moved far away from Seattle." 

Someone walks outside the door. Victoria strains herself to hear a set of wheels, maybe a steel tray being pushed down the hall. The footsteps are light, probably in an effort to keep from _waking_ her, if ever. 

"Blackwell," Victoria whispers this because she shouldn't still be up. Max cocks her brow daringly and Victoria really wants to push the _stubborn_ image, but she doesn't want to risk it. She squeezes Max's hand. "Had the time of my life there." 

"Partying every weekend. Friends. Minions to push around. Nerds to bully." 

"I was being sarcastic." 

Max's expression stays soft. "Nathan," she finishes tentatively. 

Victoria closes her eyes. Max hums, runs her thumbs in circles on the back of Victoria's hand. Gently, she reminds, "you had Nathan," and Victoria breathes the name in through her nose like air. 

He was air, though, to her at one point. She reminds herself that. 

"I loved him." 

"And he loved you," Max whispers. 

"We were unstoppable," Victoria pushes on. Old aches join new. Late nights and bars. Beers and parties. An explosion of loathing and disease, a supernova stretching for everyone else to feel. Destruction. 

"He understood you." 

"And I understood him. But we didn't understand enough to know how to deal with everything." 

Max doesn't nod, doesn't shake her head, doesn't smile this time either. Victoria doesn't breathe. "Someone died," Max says. Her hands tighten around Victoria's but it's soothing, it's safety, it's the rope around Victoria's wrist pulling her up. It's giving help instead of asking for it. 

Victoria breathes again. She nods her head. Max runs light, light fingers through Victoria's hair, grayed, blonde barely there. 

"Someone died," Victoria repeats. She closes her eyes, keeps them closed as Max carries on. 

"You lost Nathan." 

"You lost Chloe." 

Victoria opens her eyes, checks Max's face for any wounded reaction but it stays slack. Gentle, patient, unwrapping her present. 

"And I found you," Max says with a tiny smile. 

Victoria laughs, light but grounded. A buoy swaying but stuck to the surface of the water. "In the unlikeliest way." 

"Do you still remember that?" Max asks, laughs when Victoria whines. She leans forward with both elbows so slowly that the mattress doesn't jostle at all. 

"Please, god, that was so—" 

"Intense, is what it was—" 

"Max, I swear." 

Max explodes in giggles, mouth on the mattress to muffle herself. Victoria throws her head back. She laughs soundlessly. 

"We were in a bad place. _I_ was in a bad place," Max continues and Victoria sees her hand wander to her wrist. Absentmindedly, almost. Feeling scars, poking old wounds. Black coffee left to cool. "Remember how you helped me through that?" she asks with the littlest lilt of wonder, eyes wide and young and bright, clips of memories playing in her head. Victoria remembers a darker time when that used to happen. 

"You're giving me all the credit. You were there for me, too." 

"I thought you liked that? Getting all the credit I mean." 

Victoria flares her nostrils. Max rolls her lips into her mouth once to keep from grinning. "You... managed to _quit_. _You_ made the decision," she says. "And you guided me through my..." She trails off. She averts her eyes but Victoria catches them, mouths, _it's okay_ , like the many other times that year when Max woke in the middle of the night, terrified of the dark. Max manages to smile. "You got me a camera. It's still here." 

Victoria doesn't answer because she knows that. She sees it everyday, Max's most prized possession. Outdated, faded, old, like them, still on the mantle above their quaint fireplace. Her chest clenches. She has to breathe out to keep from hurting. 

"It was so hard, though," she mumbles. Max hums. 

"What was so hard?" she asks, but she already knows. Her eyes are testing, playful. Victoria smiles at her. 

"Getting there." 

Blood, sweat, skin. On them both, on Max's wrists and Victoria's mouth. Victoria doesn't blink the images away. She's here to see. She's here to remember. Max's gift is to make her remember. 

Victoria looks up at the ceiling, and she sees white powder, and sand, and dark seas, and a video that should never have existed in the first place. She sees colored lights and white, white snow. She sees a sink with blood on the porcelain and her own reflection, bleeding at the mouth. She sees a meadow, and clocks, and calendars. 

She takes them all in. 

Max lays her cheek down on top of Victoria's hand. Warm, light, like pillow feathers. "But we got there. Remember the Valentine's dance? I thought you stood me up. I was gonna ignore you for five days. Or until you've given me no less than ten Two Whales sundaes." 

Victoria bites her knuckle because she should be asleep. She laughs in muffled giggles. "You loved the suit." 

"Mhm, and I loved you." 

Planets colliding. Something never meant to happen. 

(Maybe it really was never meant to happen. But who could've stopped them, really? 

Something found and never lost again.)

A flutter and a clench. Victoria smiles lopsidedly. Max grins and amends, " _love_ you. Even when you went to France. You never told me how many people exactly fell in love with you there." 

"Oh, wow, _classy_. I could say the same for you. So, from what I remember, there's Josh from Engineering, and then that Megan girl with, what'd you call it, the Kylie Minogue teeth gap—" 

"Shut!" 

And they're laughing now, and Victoria wishes her body wasn't so sore from life, from living, from aging so she could laugh all she wants with Max like this. 

"The first summer you came home, you brought me flowers," Max says with a nudge to Victoria's bicep. Victoria rolls her eyes fondly. " _Yeah_ , you did that. That was a Saturday and I was up late. What, like, noon?" She snorts. "And I was fully expecting a day of Netflix binging but instead—" 

"You got baffled inquiries from your parents about a girlfriend you never told them about, and an awkward lunch and dinner which soon followed," Victoria professes proudly. Max looks like she wants to punch her on the arm. 

"I thought I was gonna have a heart attack." 

"But really though, Maxine, I at least expected they'd know even a little, my name, maybe—" 

Max's face goes pink. "I was waiting for the right moment! I mean, I couldn't just be all, oh by the way, mom and dad, I like a girl but she's in France, also she's really hot so you should be very proud that I'm kinda gay—" 

"That would've been perfect!" 

"That would've been terrible." 

Victoria snorts. Max huffs, squints so her crow's feet show and smiles cheekily. Victoria wants to run her fingers over the bridge of Max's nose, feel the subtle clip of an old injury there because she knows what's coming next. Max sees where she's looking and chuckles. 

"That fight we had in our apartment," she starts timidly. Victoria winces, and Max purses her lips upward like a kid saying no. "We've been living together for a year. I had a job in a magazine publishing company, you had your own little shooting agency..." 

"I lost the Chase Space," Victoria murmurs. Encouraging because Max hesitates. "Because I took you to my parents and they didn't approve." 

Max goes quiet. She's sitting up straight now, running her thumbs in circles on the back of Victoria's hand. Victoria wants to reach out, touch her, feel the old injury and the soft of Max's skin, but she shouldn't. "Come on. Help me remember," she whispers, half teasing. 

Max glances up and when she smiles, Victoria smiles back. Coffee without the heat. Old wounds. 

"They disowned you. Totally," Max says. "They cut off all links. Even financing. We were on our own. You had trouble keeping the agency afloat." 

"God, we were always so mad then, weren't we?" 

"Throwing stuff around." 

"Can't even stay in the same room without us breaking into screams." 

Max hums. "Remember when I was about to walk out? Literally and figuratively, I mean." Victoria grimaces. Max grins, eyebrows raised. "I was opening the door, you slammed it shut. Pushed me against it in the process." 

"That was an accident." 

"Hit me in the nose pretty badly, though." Max snickers when Victoria stammers. "And then you were all, _you asshole, we got by on Skype and texts for years and you're walking out on me for this?_ " 

"And that was true. Very true." 

"Very. I was stupid." 

"You were." 

Max's eyes narrow. Victoria smirks, gasps _don't you fucking dare_ when Max raises a fist. 

"But I was free," Victoria mutters. Max blinks, tilts her head meaningfully with a smile that could maybe hold a bit of pride. Victoria's chest swells with air and old pain. "It took a while to realize. But we were free." 

Under them, someone laughs. Deep, whole, jovial, and then it's joined by other voices joking about childhoods and dreams. Decisions, mistakes, luck. They talk about time. Max is smiling. She's looking at the wall, listening, grinning along and she's all Victoria sees. She's all Victoria hears. 

Victoria blinks. Old eyes getting foggy. 

"Remember when we got married?" Max asks with the absolute stupidest giggle Victoria has ever heard and Jesus, does it make her heart hurt. 

"Oh, that." Victoria's playing it cool, but she's grinning and Max isn't exactly blind. Max pokes her cheek. 

"Yeah, that." 

"I still haven't forgiven you for beating me to the proposal. Do you know what I had in mind?" Max is snorting. She's doing that face she always does when she's keeping her laughter in. Crumpled, nose wrinkled, lips rolled into her mouth. Victoria likes it. "Do you? We were gonna have dinner. I was gonna get us a violin player. A violin, Max," she insists. Max laughs now. "And what did you do? You ruined it. Like, hey, wanna watch Maze Runner and then you pop a ring in the popcorn bowl." 

"We got married though, isn't that more important?" Max says shrilly. Victoria grins because yes, they did get married. Yes, she guesses, that's more important. 

 _I'm glad I found you_ , Max had told her. 

Still though. Stubborn. Violins, man. 

"You were so beautiful," she mumbles, and the intensity of the warmth in it must surprise Max because she pauses, mouth slack, chin wobbling. Victoria licks her lips. Her throat feels tight. "I mean, I already knew that, but you had on this dress, and it was fall, and the ceremony was outdoors with everyone there. Your parents, your grandparents, some of my cousins, our friends..." 

"Kate was crying, you know. Dana was, too." 

"Dana? Didn't she have a cold?" 

"That's what she told you," Max drawls cheekily and Victoria just has to laugh. "You were dashing on your own. You like wearing suits when I'm in dresses, don't you?" 

Victoria shifts to ease a pain on her hip. Max helps her adjust eagerly. "To complement you," Victoria says truthfully. "I want to look good with you. I want us to look good with each other." 

When Max sits back down, she lolls forward to give Victoria a peck on the forehead. She kisses lightly. Butterfly wings on skin. Victoria's jaw shudders. "We do look good. We _are_ good for each other." 

Victoria grabs Max's hand just to squeeze it. Just to feel it. 

"When we adopted," she says, and her voice is shaky and she hates it, she hates the ache, she hates the pain, she hates her bones. "I was terrified. I didn't know how to deal with kids. I thought I would be a terrible mom—" 

"You weren't, though. Listen—here, listen." 

And Victoria shuts up to hear the laughter downstairs again. Of their children. Of their grandchildren. Of the wives and husbands and cousins. So many voices. Victoria breathes with Max. 

"You never did know how to stop at one," Max whispers smilingly. Victoria laughs, the sound of it cracked and wet. "Stubborn," Max quips. She plays with the wrinkles of Victoria's fingers. "You were stubborn, have always been. But you let that go one time. Briefly." 

Victoria shuts her eyes. Max says it for her. "When your mom passed away." 

Victoria still remembers. The weight of the call. Dragging herself to the wake, crying on an open casket. Distancing herself from a father who couldn't glance in her direction. Floating in a house of expectations and disappointments. A house of old wounds. Shackles. 

"She wasn't the best. But she was my mother," she mumbles. Max waits. Victoria inhales and continues. "Remember how much I cried about that?" 

"I do." 

Her father had begged her to come, if only for family. Coming had been so easy. Everything is easy when you're free. _Will you be coming back_ , her father had asked, the same hard eyes from her childhood now soft, the same hands stiff when she was young now trembling. 

The answer had been so easy because she was free. _I have my own family._

Her father had left for Europe. He took with him the old, imperfectly perfect image of a Chase. 

Max brushes her fingertips on Victoria's cheek. She smiles and one corner is bathed in silver, moonlight on the slits of her wrinkles. She tilts her head enough to let the silver reach her eyes and Victoria sees sadness. She knows what's next. Max opens her mouth, says, "every birthday, we gave each other presents," and Victoria starts to plead _no, no,_ but Max shushes her gently with a finger and a whisper. "Every year. Birthdays were always happy. Except one year, we had to stop—" 

"Max—" 

"Because I had a thing in my brain," Max's voice shatters here, this part right _here_ , and Victoria wishes and also doesn't that she can't hear it. Max's voice is a bridge. A long bridge, an old bridge. "And the doctors couldn't explain what was wrong, with the nosebleeds, with the headaches, just that they were trying their best." 

Victoria's gripping Max's hand so tightly their arms tremble. She exhales air, sharp, shaking. Max furls her fingers around Victoria's stiff knuckles to smooth them. "With just us, and mom and dad, and with the kids on our backs," she continues, "we just couldn't afford any more tours and plane tickets, could we?" 

Max rubs Victoria's arm until she calms. Until Victoria could breathe above sharp gasps and stabbing sobs, eyes shut, teeth clenched. "That was a hard time," Victoria whispers. 

"But we got through." Victoria feels Max's breath on her cheek. She turns her head so Max's lips fall flush, and they're warm. Light and warm. Max draws a long breath in through her mouth. "We got through. With the kids and the loans, we didn't have anything left for presents," she smiles, "but it's okay, because every year you got me flowers. Beautiful flowers." 

Victoria cries. Max keeps their hands together, filling the voids between each other's fingers. She whispers, _it's okay, it's okay, that's over_ , and below them there's still laughter, below them is the son and the daughter that are theirs, no matter what anybody says. Their son and daughter, with their own wife, husband, children. 

The voices of cousins, of distant relatives. The voices of their family. 

"You hear all that?" Max is cooing. "You did a great job. I'm so proud of you. You did a great job." 

And Victoria lifts her arms, bones aching, muscles pleading, and spreads them for Max to sink into. Max stands and falls onto her. Warm. Light. Unreal. Almost not there. 

Victoria hears laughter below them. Her heartbeat. Her breathing. Outside, cicadas are chirping, leaves are rustling. Time going on and on. She feels old: _is_ old, so old. 

"I missed you," she whispers.

Max pulls off of her. She lingers, bent over Victoria, palms on the edge of the bed, smile soft, eyes bright. She asks, "you want to get up now?" and Victoria has tears and snot in her mouth as she laughs. 

"I think so." 

Max holds out a hand. Victoria takes it gingerly. She blinks. 

The moonlight doesn't hurt her eyes when she sits up, face turned to face it. Max drags her all the way to her feet, and her bones are fine, firm, strong, and when she looks at Max, Max is young, hair brown, cheeks flush, eyes bright and round and blue. Like the sky. Like the sea. Like the sheets. 

Blue is always Max's eyes, and they are skies, and they have clouds in them in the shape of birds in flight. 

Victoria turns around to see herself on the bed. Old, wrinkled, gray. Battered with work and age. 

She listens to the laughter on the first floor. Max holds her cheeks and kisses her mouth, pulls away after to whisper, _such a great job. You did such a great job,_ and Victoria holds Max so close their bodies threaten to meld. 

Max parts them to breathe and there's a laugh in her eyes among the tears. She steps back and Victoria sees, she's in her hoodie, she's wrapped in sheets, she's bloody, she's in her wedding dress, she's in her summer shorts, in office slacks, in a hospital gown: weak and pallid and hooked to machines larger than her body. 

She's each image Victoria can remember her, and she is beautiful, and she is cracked, and she is perfect, and she is _these_ forever. 

 _I'm sorry I took too long_ , she's saying. Her voice is a bridge, long and frail but standing. Something Victoria's clung to for years to not fall into the cliff. 

Victoria smiles while winding their hands together. _It's good you did._ She listens to the voices downstairs. She imagines cloud watching and birds. They walk, and Max promises her. 

_I found you._

_And I'll find you over and over again._

 

**Author's Note:**

> _Take me one more time_   
>  _Take me one more wave_   
>  _Take me for one last ride_   
>  _I'm out of my head_
> 
> _[The sound of the waves collide](http://youtube.com/watch?v=U7xBLcBncrU) _
> 
> \- 
> 
> thank you.


End file.
